With the recent reduction in RHI subsidies it is a good time to consider what the new tariffs mean to the each of us.

Most in NI are approved under the 99 kw scheme and current payment is 6.7 p for the first 15% usage and 1.5 p on the balance.

The average subsidy will be dependent on your usage.

15% usage 6.7 p/kw

25% usage 4.62 p/kw

50%usage 3.06 p/kw

75% usage 2.67 p/kw

100% usage 2.28 p/kw

Cost of pellets:

The cost of per kw of energy and not the cost per tonne is the important cost:

You will find around 7% variation in the price of pellets but up to 20% variation in the energy content. The low priced pellets can often damage your boiler resulting in high maintained costs.

The cost of energy from good quality pellets and assuming 90% boiler efficiency is approximately 3.5 p/Kw.

So in practice most boilers will not run more than  40% loading over the year and so  we are getting free heat in this scenario..

For comparison oil heating will cost close to  5 p/Kw.

The cuts in RHI subsidy is currently being contested in the courts.

The BBC has reported that the poultry industry has "CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH" following recent audits. Council representing RHI recipients stated in court that Stormont has no legal right to reduce payments.

We have dealt with facts here so perhaps I can give MY OPINION. Most people are of the opinion that the original RHI tariffs will be re-instated and any loss in payment made good and quite honestly I cannot imagine any situation that will differ.

I see one big danger.  Some users are of the opinion that oil and gas are cheaper than biomass and have reduced their usage of biomass. The total consumption this current year, could be used to cap payments in the future. My advice would be:  keep the fires burning.

With the recent issues in UK and NI politics the RHI is no longer a big issue and it is very likely that all will go back to normal  with little fuss.